Edge Law

A Fair and Balanced Weblog

Thursday, March 04, 2004

This is absurd

Republican Congressman Tom Cole claims a vote against the re-election of President Bush is like supporting Adolph Hitler during World War Two. It's what he said recently before a meeting of Canadian County Republicans.

U-S Representative Tom Cole might have stirred up Democrats by saying a vote against the re-election of President Bush is like supporting Adolph Hitler during World War Two. Or supporting Osama bin Laden now. "If George Bush loses the election, Osama bin Laden wins the election," Cole is quoted in this week's edition of the Yukon Review which covered the recent meeting of the Canadinan County Republicans where Cole was a speaker. The newspaper says Cole claims if Bush loses his re-election bid, the enemies of the U-S will interpret it as a victory for bin Laden. No comment so far from Oklahoma Democratic party leaders to see if they think Cole is comparing John Kerry to Adolph Hitler or Osama bin Laden. In the Yukon Review article, Cole is quoted as asking what Hitler might have thought had Franklin Roosevelt not been re-elected in 1944.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to address the issue of government spending. Prescription medicines for seniors, helping families own their own homes, supporting education and defending America--the list of the government's responsibilities to the American people is numerous. But, while it is the government's responsibility to provide assistance to the needy and fund programs for our children and seniors, it is intolerable to provide these services at the cost of leaving a crippling burden of debt on our children and grandchildren.

Translation: We got our tax cuts, now we need to fix the budget mess, so we might as well stop providing assistance to kids and old people now so that kids later don't have a lot of debt.

Wednesday, March 03, 2004

Firefighters Speak Out

"I'm disappointed but not surprised that the President would try to trade on the heroism of those fire fighters in the September 11 attacks. The use of 9/11 images are hypocrisy at its worst. Here's a President that initially opposed the creation of the Department of Homeland Security and now uses its first anniversary as cause to promote his re-election. Here is a President that proposed two budgets with no funding for FIRE Act grants and still plays on the image of America's bravest. His advertisements are disgraceful."

Tuesday, March 02, 2004

U.S. led coup in Haiti, says Aristide

Now-exiled Haitian leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide says that U.S. forces forced him to resign and threatened him before he capitulated and ended up on a plane to Africa. Many bloggers have already covered this news, but there were two things from the Bush administration that were outrageous and worthy of further exposition.

The first is the White House's denial of Aristide's story (and this story comes straight from his mouth - he spoke with an AP reporter via phone from his new location in the Central African Republic). Here's Mr. Scott, Bush's "press" secretary:

"That's nonsense," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. "I've seen some of the reports [and they] do nothing to help the Haitians move forward to a better, more prosperous future."

This is a non-denial if I've ever seen one. Folks, if you haven't read 1984 lately, I urge you to do so - the similarities between it and our government today are uncanny and eerily frightening. In case it isn't clear - the fact that the report helps the Haitians is irrelevant to its truth...

The second is from Colin Powell, and is even more ridiculous. I'll let this one speak for itself and you see if you can imagine another person being the subject of this rather than Aristide:

Powell said that "it might have been better for members of Congress who have heard these stories to ask us about the stories before going public with them so we don't make a difficult situation that much more difficult."

He called Aristide "a man who was democratically elected, but he did not democratically govern or govern well," he said. "Now we are there to give the Haitian people another chance."